VA to provide spousal benefits to gays, administration says

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration on Wednesday escalated its effort to dismantle federal barriers to same-sex marriages, announcing that the Department of Veterans Affairs would immediately begin providing spousal benefits to gay men and lesbians despite a federal statute that limits such benefits to veterans' spouses who are "of the opposite sex."

In letters to congressional leaders, Attorney General Eric Holder said that President Barack Obama had directed the executive branch to stop obeying the statute because it had decided that it was unconstitutional in light of a Supreme Court ruling in June that struck down a similar law, a part of the Defense of Marriage Act.

After the Supreme Court ruling, many agencies - the Pentagon and the Internal Revenue Service among them - have been rewriting their rules to define marriage in gender-neutral terms.

Last month the military announced that the same-sex spouses of active-duty personnel would receive similar family and spousal benefits, including housing allowances.

But the VA is in a different situation because Congress codified its definition of who was eligible for spousal benefits as a statute, and lawmakers have not changed it.

Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki said last month that his agency was struggling with the question of providing benefits to surviving spouses because the statutory language defining "spouse" was slightly different from the law that the court had struck down.

Should Congress approve legislation revising the spousal definitions statute or should a court strike the law down, Shinseki added, the VA would swiftly adjust its policy.